Fáilte Ireland anticipates that tourism figures will improve in 2015 because of the increasingly steady step of the country's economic recovery.The body's chairman, Michael Cawley, said the eradication of the aviation tax in Ireland has helped the sector, much like the reduction of tourism VAT to 9 per cent.
On the other hand, he is displeased by the UK's government's initiative to increase its air-passenger duty, as this has been detrimental to visitor numbers from Britain. He told RTÉ Radio:
"The extent to which Britain in particular has increased its air passenger duty over the last number of years from £5 in 2007 to £13 per single flight has had a devastating effect on not just air access into Ireland but access from Britain to many of its traditional holiday destination."
He went on to state "The picture today is we’ve reached a level where 60 per cent of visitors rank Ireland as being competitive. While this is positive we still have a long way to go. This is a key issue for us. It is far easier to retain existing customers who have a good and pleasant experience than to go out and look for new ones."
